cant has not been admitted in the Courts of a sister Attorneys. 280. Each Clerk must keep a roll of attorneys and Roll of counselors admitted to practice by the Court of which he is Clerk, which roll must be signed by the person admitted before he receives his license. practicing license. 281. If any person shall practice law in any Court, Penalty for except a Justice's or Police Court, without having without received a license as attorney and counselor, he is guilty of a contempt of Court. NOTE. Any person may engage in the profession of law. The profession is open to all, and it is simply the right to practice in Court which is not permitted except to those duly qualified.—Woods' Case, 1 Hopkins Chan., p. 6; Cohen vs. Wright, 22 Cal., p. 313. 282. It is the duty of an attorney and counselor: 1. To support the Constitution and laws of the General United States and of this State; 2. To maintain the respect due to the Courts of justice and judicial officers; 19-VOL. I. duties. Same. 3. To counsel or maintain such actions, proceedings, or defenses only as appear to him legal or just, except the defense of a person charged with a public offense; 4. To employ, for the purpose of maintaining the causes confided to him, such means only as are consistent with truth, and never to seek to mislead the Judges by an artifice or false statement of fact or law; 5. To maintain inviolate the confidence, and at every peril to himself, to preserve the secrets of his client; 6. To abstain from all offensive personality, and to advance no fact prejudicial to the honor or reputation of a party or witness, unless required by the justice of the cause with which he is charged; 7. Not to encourage either the commencement or the continuance of an action or proceeding from any motive of passion or interest; 8. Never to reject, for any consideration personal to himself, the cause of the defenseless or the oppressed. NOTE.-1. DUTIES OF ATTORNEYS AND COUNSELORS. The provisions of this section are taken substantially from the oath prescribed to advocates by the laws of Geneva. The oath is as follows: "I swear before God, "To be faithful to the republic and the Canton of Geneva; "Never to depart from the respect due to the tribunals and authorities; "Never to counsel or maintain a cause which does not appear to be just or equitable, unless it be the defense of an accused person; "Never to employ knowingly, for the purpose of maintaining the causes confided to me, any means contrary to truth, and never to seek to mislead the Judges by any artifice or false statement of fact or law; "To abstain from all offensive personality, and to advance no fact contrary to the honor or reputation of the parties, if it be not indispensable to the cause with which I may be charged; "Not to encourage either the commencement or the continuance of a suit from any motive of passion or interest; "Not to reject, for any considerations personal to myself, the cause of the weak, the stranger, or the oppressed." Say the Commissioners of New York: This appears to us to express so justly the general duties of lawyers, that we cannot do better than take almost the very terms of it in prescribing their duties. The profession of a lawyer is essential to society. Its character and honor are public interests. Not only is the advice of lawyers necessary in the more difficult transactions of private life, but their intervention is necessary to represent the suitor, and advocate his rights before the Courts. In this position everything is confided to their integrity. The magnitude of the interests placed in their hands-property, character, liberty, life-the responsibility which they assume, the confidence which they receive, all demand and presuppose the highest qualities and character. No dishonest or dishonorable man can retain the confidence of honest and honorable men. The most intimate connection, in reality, subsists between the character of the community and the character of the bar. An unscrupulous bar could not exist in a high-minded community; and if anywhere a currupt legal profession is to be found, it is found in the midst of a corrupt and corrupting people. "The judicial department is recruited from the legal profession. Judges must be lawyers. This circumstance alone, the mere fact that one of the great departments of government, coördinate in power, equal in dignity, and the one upon which especially the safety of the citizen depends, is, by the law of its condition, eligible only out of the ranks of one profession, is enough to give it preeminence. The integrity of the Judiciary, more than that of any other class of magistrates, is evidence of the soundness of the public mind. The character of the Judges, however, is the character of the lawyers. Made at the bar, their moral characters there 'take their complexion. To degrade the bar, therefore, leads directly and inevitably to the degradation of the bench. "There are certain grave errors somewhat current respecting the duties of lawyers, which deserve serious consideration. We refer particularly to their alleged indifference to the moral aspects of the causes they advocate-not that there is anything like the indifference which is supposed to exist. On the contrary, persons more scrupulously exact never to take part with wrong, or seem to do so, cannot be found in any profession. But there is nevertheless an impression widely diffused, not only in the profession but out of it, that a lawyer may properly advocate a bad cause. This view of the case we here venture briefly to consider. "When a lawyer is asked for his opinion upon a purely legal question, his duty ends with stating the law as it is. In many instances, however, more than this is asked. His client seeks his advice respecting his future conduct. In such cases, his duty as a moral being requires him to advise justice. His position as a legal adviser does not exempt him from the moral duties which bind other men. He has no more right than another friend to advise what is unjust or oppressive. Undoubtedly the client must judge for himself of the moral quality of his own actions, and if he desires no more than to know what course the law requires under particular circumstances, the adviser's duty ends with explaining that. But in practice the client generally expects and asks more. He asks advice from a friend who knows what his legal rights are, and who probably has more of his confidence than any other person. In such circumstances, he is bound by moral and should be bound by human laws, to throw his influence upon the side of integrity. To assent to the bad scheme of an unjust client is to become equally guilty with him, and the two are as much conspirators to effect as if they had originally concocted a plan of iniquity, with a view of sharing in the plunder. And when, in addition to advice, the client wants an advocate and asks for active cooperation, the same laws bind him just as strongly to refrain from pursuing an unjust object. "It is sometimes said that a lawyer is not at liberty to refuse his services to any person, and that when once engaged he is at liberty to employ every means in his power for his client. Indeed, so eminent a person as Lord, Brougham is reported to have said, in a speech in the British House of Lords, that the advocate is bound to forget that there is any other person in the world besides his client, and to lose sight of every other consideration than of success. Is it possible that this can be just? Should the advocate forget that there is a society whose welfare he is bound, by the highest sanctions, to promote; that there are other parties whose rights are at stake; that there are duties to society, to every member of it, as well as to the one who retained him? "The doctrine appears to be unsound in theory, and most pernicious in practice. It assumes that a man has a right to whatever the law can give him, that the law is so plain that it cannot be mistaken or perverted, and that one may rightfully avail himself of every defect in an adversary's proof which the rules of evidence, or accident, or time may have created-three propositions, every one of which is without foundation. Suppose that a client makes claim to land in the possession and apparent ownership of another, whose evidence of title, however, has been destroyed by accident. The advocate knows from confidential communications made to him as counsel, that his client has not a just claim to the land; but, from defect of proof on the part of the possessor, it is easy for him to recover it. If the client asks it, is he bound to assist him? Few persons will maintain that. But if the doctrine is a sound one, does it not embrace this case? There is, as it strikes us, no middle ground. If the advocate is to overlook the moral aspects of the claim he must recover this property for his client. Putting so extreme a case tests the principle, and shows it to be unsound, by showing that it leads to a consequence so revolting. "The law, moreover, is not so clear and precise but that it may be mistaken or perverted. A strong mind at the bar and a weak one on the bench lead often to erroneous judgments. The argument we oppose takes for granted the infallibility of Judges and the certainty of law. Who, conversant with the proceedings of Courts, does not know that neither can be counted on? Before ordinary tribunals, more depends on the advocate than is generally imagined. Is it lawful to use the power of reason and eloquence to sustain a bad cause, to support the guilty, or, what is more revolting, to persecute innocence? May the faculties be abused, and learning perverted, to make false reasons seem true, to cover up weak points, to give undue prominence to some facts, to conceal others, to magnify one's own cause, to villify an adversary's? To hold this proceeds upon the fallacy that truth and right cannot be misrepresented or concealed. Who does not know the contrary? If it be said that it is the duty of an advocate to go no further than to present the cause of his client truly, leaving the results to the Courts and juries, it may be answered that truth is absolute, not relative. To present a case truly requires the whole truth on both sides, as well that which makes against as that which makes for a client. If he present the favorable circumstances and suppress the unfavorable, does he present the case truly? Does he not rather impose a false impression on those who have to judge? We by no means assert that an advocate may not take upon himself the defense of a man whom he believes to be |